Bringing metal-organic frameworks to commercialization

I completed a Masters in Chemistry at the University of Manchester (2003 − 2007), followed by a PhD at theUniversity of California Los Angeles (2007 − 2012) in the laboratory of Omar Yaghi. My research in the Yaghi laboratory focused on identifying and characterizing chemically stable metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Following the identification of MOFs, I looked to perform chemical transformations on MOFs through postmodification and evaluated the application of these materials in gas adsorption and separation applications. I then attended a postdoc at Northwestern University in Chad Mirkin’s laboratory. In the Mirkin lab, I continued working on MOFs, evaluating how these materials behaved at the nanoscale and, in collaboration with others, how they interact with biological systems. During this time, I also had the opportunity to learn about lithography and DNA-mediated assembly. While at Northwestern, I first heard about Numat, a company focused on commercializing MOFs. I joined Numat in 2015, looking to leverage my scientific training to support Numat’s mission to commercialize MOFs. While at Numat, I have served in several roles, including senior chemist, director of R&D, and today, director of business development.

I was looking to take the next step in my scientific career after my postdoc, and I evaluated opportunities both in academia and industry. Like today, the academic job market was competitive, and I wasn’t offered a position in academia. However, I also looked at opportunities in the chemical industry through recruiting events held at Northwestern University. It was there that I learned Numat was recruiting chemists with experience in MOF chemistry, where I was consequently hired into my first industrial role.

The academic literature today is filled with fundamental research on many MOF applications, including adsorption, separation, sensing, catalysis, and biology. In these reports, MOFs often show great promise with improved performance over current materials, enabling new functions or reducing energy costs associated with chemical processes. Although promising, only a handful of MOF applications have transitioned from fundamental research to commercialization. Drawing parallels with other novel chemistries, including lithium-ion batteries and graphene, these materials technologies can take many decades to transition from discovery to commercial deployment. Applications enabled by new materials, including MOFs, face challenges that must be overcome to transition from fundamental research to commercialization. These challenges can be broadly bucketed into applied research and include but are not limited to material scaling, post-processing, integration into a device, prototype testing, safety, and compliance. Each topic must be addressed for a new material class to be commercialized. Therefore, these commercial transitions take a lot of time and resources.

Numat has investigated multiple business cases for MOFs, identifying two initial markets where MOFs can address major challenges: electronics and extreme environments. Numat has developed two products for these markets: ION-X® MOFs for subatmospheric gas delivery systems in electronics markets and SNTL™ MOFs for gas filtration in extreme environments. In both cases, customer adoption of these products is driven by safety considerations. ION-X stores toxic gases subatmospherically that are used at global semiconductor manufacturing sites. SNTL is deployed in protective filters and fabrics to capture and degrade toxic gases and chemical warfare agents. Across these products, Numat has spent ten years completing the applied research required to bring these materials to commercialization. This time involves establishing business cases, customers, and distribution partners for these products. To achieve this commercial success, Numat has built a multidisciplinary team, a domestic MOF manufacturing site, and dedicated many people hours to addressing applied research questions.

In a fast-moving field like MOFs, it is critical to maintain collaborations and an awareness of the work being performed in academia and other research organizations like National Laboratories. As a growth-stage company spun out of Northwestern University, Numat shares close ties with the laboratory of Professor Farha, one of the founders of Numat. In collaboration with Professor Farha, we have accessed grant funding to support graduate students and postdocs, enabling collaborations between Numat and Northwestern. We have also collaborated with others, providing opinions on MOF commercialization, publishing papers, and looking to access grant funding. Beyond Numat, spinout companies from universities and large companies are looking to bring new MOF research to commercialization. In addition to collaborating with academia, Numat attends conferences, reviews MOF literature, and hires employees from leading academic MOF labs to join the Numat team.

Seeing how the MOF field has grown since the initial discoveries and reports on these materials has been amazing. I was recently in Singapore for the international MOF conference, and the diversity of research on MOFs continues to expand. As a result, many of the early challenges associated with these materials have been overcome. These challenges include improvements in the chemical stability of MOFs and improvements in the synthesis techniques used to produce MOFs. Today, material discovery is happening at a faster cadence, and studies of the applications of MOFs in a broader range of applications continue.

For any researcher interested in making their research more applicable to the real world, many things can be done today. First, think about the next set of experiments that could be performed to advance the TRL of the research being performed. Depending on the targeted application, this work can take many forms, but it will likely look to establish performance under real-world conditions. Second, evaluate the business case for your technology. Answering questions like what you are looking to enable, what technology are you competing against, who the customer is, and what scale you will have to produce it at. Third, establish how you could bring your technology to commercialization. This work might involve partnering with a company or establishing a company to mature the technology to commercialization.

I am not sure if it is excitement or nerves, but today, there is a great driving force for accelerating new materials technologies to commercialization. This driving force is global warming and the need to reach “net zero,” ideally by 2050. Net zero is a bold goal; going from 36.8 gigatons of emissions today to zero will require completely reimagining how we generate and use energy. New materials technologies will play a critical role across a broad range of applications if we’re to achieve net zero, forcing us to rethink how we harvest, store, separate, and the energy sources of the future. To apply new materials to net zero challenges, business cases, and funding must be developed to facilitate the transition of these technologies to commercialization. The initial signs are promising, with governments establishing tax policies, companies pledging to net zero goals, and a larger focus on demonstrating technologies at relevant scales to make an impact.